d his door as wide as it
would go, and gave us free access to every cranny of his dwelling. Food
he procured us--rough black bread, some pieces of roasted goat, and some
goat's milk--and on this we regaled ourselves as though it had been a
ducal banquet, for hunger had set us in the mood to account anything
delicious. And when we had eaten we fell to talking, the old man having
left us to go about such peasant duties as claimed his attention, and
our talk concerned ourselves, our future first, and later on our past. I
remember that Madonna returned to the matter of the deception that I had
practised, seeking to learn what reasons had impelled me, and I answered
her in all truth.

"Madonna mia, I think it must have been to win your love. When Giovanni
Sforza bade me, with many a threat, to write those verses, I undertook
the task with ready gladness, for in its performance I was to pour out
the tale of the passion that was consuming my poor heart. It occurred to
me that if those verses were worthy, you might come to love their author
for their beauty, and so I strove to render them beautiful. It was the
same spirit urged me to don the Lord Giovanni's armour and fight in that
splendid if futile skirmish. Even as you had come to love the author for
his verses, so might you come to love the warrior for his valour. That
you should account the one and the other the work of Giovanni Sforza
was to me a little thing, since I was well content to think that you
but loved him because you accounted his the things that I had performed.
Therefore was I the one you truly loved, although you did not know it.
Could you but conceive what consolation that reflection was to me, you
would deal lightly with me for my deceit."

"I can conceive it," she answered, very gently, her eyes downcast; "and
now that I know the motives that impelled you, I almost love you for
that deceit itself, for it seems to me that it holds some quality well
worthy of devotion."

Such was our talk, all of a nature to help us to a better understanding
of each other, and all seeming to endear us more and more by showing us
how close the past had already drawn us.

Later I rose and announced my intention of adventuring into Cattolica,
there to procure her garments more seemly than those she wore, in which
she might journey on and come into the presence of my mother. Also,
there was in Cattolica a man I knew, of whom I hoped for the loan of
enough money to enable me